Eff Sh*t Up Friday – Gratitude for the Activists

I am grateful for activists. I receive lots of really incredible emails on a pretty regular basis. This week I received some remarkable messages that I think are pretty great.

One was from a student of mine who read the chapter about “substance use” in our textbook and took exception with the language used. He emailed the authors of the textbook and got this response:

“The textbook publisher emailed me a proof of the next edition’s chapter on addiction asking me to look it over and give them feedback. So I did and made some recommendations to them about changing some of the language to be person first; not using the label addict, alcoholic, clean, or junkie. I made a few other suggestions as well and sent it off to them. They replied and said they’re going to make all the changes. I think I just successfully advocated for people with substance use disorder and it feels great! I mean, who’d have thought that a student could send an author an email and get changes made to a book that’ll have thousands of copies printed and used by students all across the country? Wild.”

Stirring the pot and fucking shit up isn’t always about mass protest, sometimes it is about doing something like changing the language in a textbook.

I just had a client send me a message saying, “Thank you for showing us every day ways we can advocate as normal, every day people. Sometimes it feels like I need to be xyz before we can advocate.” Everyone can be an advocate, the trick is tapping into your passion to make it successful and meaningful to you! Here are 5 tricks you can use RIGHT NOW to tap into your jam!

Finally, I would like to thank these AMAZING students at the USC School of Social Work who were told last week that their beloved professor wouldn’t be teaching the last 2 weeks in an act of ridiculous patriarchal hypocrisy. Not only did they send an email to their Dean but when their efforts were met with silence, they posted their letter publicly on Facebook. Cheers and kick ass applause goes to Samantha Arensdorff, Veronica Aguilar, Angie Callejas, Brenda Garcia, Tati Hicks, Meri Graham, Elizabeth Sanchez Noguera, Deborah Joe, and Sharon Aceituno for pointing out that USC is riddled with hypocrisy and efforts to protect men who commit acts of violence against women.

“This cohort has been told it was normal to continue to employ a guilty, sexual predator in a home office, away from the students that he was found guilty of sexually harassing. In short, we are forced to accept that we may see sexual predator, Erik Guerrero, waltzing around campus…How can we trust that the University of Southern California is a leading institution who promotes social change and innovative teaching and learning style?”

This Fuck Shit up Friday remember, you don’t have to engage in large scale action to make a difference but you DO have to do something.